That's what she said

Dear Complaints Department,

I was weary at first by your sale tactics, rushing women in and out just as quickly, in attempts of making a quick sale. However, when I came to get a bridesmaid dress a few months back, I was pleasantly surprised by your helpfulness. You had me. So, in my frantic searching for wedding shoes, I thought why not. Looking online you had a good selection and the prices seemed reasonable. You even went as far and offered to die the shoes for me to match my dress- major points!

 

When I came to pick up my shoes yesterday, there was a line of women outside the door, just waiting to spill in and get their hands on the white fabrics and lace adorning the store. As I made my way through the mass of women, I was reminded of an episode of, Say Yes to the Dress, and the chaos that ensused on one of their sale days. A friendly associate asked me if I needed help and I told her I was just there for a pick-up. After a few minutes she returned with my shoes. At first glance they looked fine, but as I looked closer I saw some dirt spots and stains inside one shoe and gum on the bottom of the other. Hmm...generally I probably would let it go, but it was for my wedding and I did pay a good amount of money for them. I was a little confused why a new pair of shoes would have stains on them in the first place? She told me to wait for the next associate. As I stood there waiting, I overheard one customer go through three different associates before they were able to track her bridesmaid dress down and a bride who was picking up her wedding dress. While scanning over it she found some major rips in it! Thankfully her wedding isn't till May, but understandably she didn't look too thrilled with the mess-up.

 

I waited my turn and was finally able to speak with the sales associate at the register. I calmly mentioned that I was just picking up my shoes and they had stains inside and gum on the bottom of one of the shoes. She glanced over them and asked if I had ordered them or came into the store. "Um ordered I guess....what is the difference?" "Well, if you order them they are new, but if you just come into the store they are not." Apparently, they were not new. And there are no exchanges or returns....so once you place your order, no matter how it comes back you are stuck.

 

Needless to say, she offered to wipe out the insides if that " would make me feel better" Yes, as a matter of fact it would. I understand that like any shoe store people may have tried them on first...but for some reason I was under the impression that sense I had to wait a month to get them, paid a good amount of $ for them, they would be new, or at least not have any stains on them. Apparently I was wrong. I left the store a little discouraged but with head held high, what was I supposed to do with the wedding less than two weeks away.

 

Sincerely,

 

An un-satisfied customer

Crunch time

I can't believe the big day is less than two weeks away. This past week was crazy. Fresh off our weekend in Chicago, we jumped right back into the three day work week, every hour not spent at work or sleeping we spent cleaning and painting our old places in time for our walk throughs this past weekend. I had to take a picture of the living room after we finished moving everything in, it was a disaster! Wedding centerpieces covering every square inch of extra space! Thank goodness for the four day weekend or I don't know how we would have gotten everything done. We also managed to fit in thanksgiving dinner, black Friday shopping and decorating the christmas tree. (we figured if we didn't do it then it wouldn't get put up!)

 

I moved in with my good friends Hannah and Alissa for the next couple weeks until the wedding. I am looking forward to having some good girl time with them!

 

We still have a few things to finalize and piece together, but for the most part things are running smoothly, as always! I know that we will be fine but I still have that feeling in the back of my stomach that it will all fall apart. Breath Esther, breathe.

 

Things still left to do

 

Finalize Timelines

Finalize vows with pastor

Fill favor bags

Finalize song play list

Ceremony decorations

Rent heaters

 

Thankfully this list is ten times smaller than when we first started this almost four months ago. Dec 27 will be our 1 year anniversary since our first date. It seems a lifetime ago that all we had to think about was what we were going to do for dinner that night or what movie we wanted to see. While I'll admit it was much simpler then, I wouldn't trade a thing for where we are at today!

I am thankful for

• Jesus who is always faithfull, always loving, always patient and always perfect
• My church. Filled with real people that love Jesus, are understanding, take care of each other and don't try and be anything they are not
• My family who loves me unconditionally even when I lose my patience and get frustrated. Who have seen me through the good and the bad.
• My fiance who is my best friend, who loves me even in my weakest moments, builds me up when I need it and fills my heart
• Friends who are always there to make me laugh, pray for me and love me like a sister
• The little things in life, soy lattes, fire, music, journals, sunsets, chocolate, snow, ocean, mountains
• Being able to cook, run, laugh, cry, love and dream

 
  

Seattle, how I missed thee

Back from the Engagement party and in one piece! We got back in town at about 10 on Sunday after a FULL three days of meeting family, friends, eating and shopping. It was a fun time! In order to give you a full appreciation of the weekend and the business it entailed, I have outlined below a shortened version for you.

 

Friday

 

5:45am left for the airport

1pm arrived in Milwaukee where Finly/Feby picked us up and took us to Flyn’s parents house for our first round of introductions and lunch.

3:30pm With a full car in tow, we headed downtown to Sahil to find an Indian style dress for me to wear to the engagement party. After a  good two hours of looking and trying on more than ten different bright and shiny dresses, I settled on a deep green sari.

8pm Dinner back at the parents house and another round of meet and greets and great Indian food!

10pm Headed back to the hotel after a long day for a good night’s rest

 

Saturday

 

7am Wake up, breakfast, start getting ready

8:30am Feby, Suzy, Jane arrive to help get ready and put my Sari on for me. Now you may be wondering, why did it take three girls to help put it on? Well if you un-familiar, you should know they are quite complicated to put on if you have never done it before.

10:30am Leave for the engagement party

11-3pm Engagement Party in Mount Prospect. Opening announcements, lunch, greeted and talked to the 300 plus guests, and hung out with some good friends from the area.

3-7pm Finally some down time!

7:30pm-10:30pm Dinner and socializing at the parent’s house.

11-12:30am Flyn and I caught up with some of his cousins for a beer at a local brewery

 

Sunday

 

7am Wake up, breakfast, get ready, pack, check out of hotel

9:30am-1pm Church and Lunch at the parent's

2-4pm Shopping at Gurnee Mills. The Largest outlet mall in the country!

4:30pm Leave for the Airport

8pm Flight back to Seattle

11pm Home J

 

All in all we had a great time. Flyn's family was so gracious and sweet to plan this party for us. It was fun to get to meet his old friends and my new family. Exhausting at times, yes....but fun!

 

This week will busy as well, getting our final belongings out of our apartments and cleaning them up. I am looking forward to the four day weekend.

 

 

Chicago here we come...

So much to do before the day ends.

Laundry. Pack. Shopping. Pick reading material for the plane (i.e magazines)

Get up at five to leave for the airport. Not my favorite way to start the long weekend off....

Drink a grande soy latte.

We arrive in Chicago at around two in the afternoon and then its off to the dress shop to find a pretty little something for me to wear to the party.

 

Tonight will consist of packing, watching Thursday night TV and eating some homemade pizza compliments of Trader Joes.

 

Hope you have a great weekend!

 

Restaurant Review

Sence moving to the other side of the freeway, I have been looking for new restaurants to try out in the new neighborhood. Every day on my way home from work I pass by this Puerto Rican Restaurant La Isla It looked cute and fun from the outside and I had heard good reviews about it from a co-worker. My sweet fiance took me there last night on our date.

It was pleasantly full when we arrived and we were seated quickly.There was still a little time before Happy Hour was over so we ordered a half price appetizer, Alacpurria. "Fried, doughy treat filled with ground meat and vegetables." It was fried, sweet and pretty much just as the description described. After we got our food we were still waiting on water however and we had to pull a waiter aside to ask for two glasses.

We waited a good amount of time for our food to arrive, which after filling our stomaches with the appetizer made it a little more bearable. When the food finally arrived, it looked great! Flyn ordered Salmon that was good and I ordered the Pollo Guisado (tender, juicy, chicken thighs slow cooked). The portion sizes were huge, but overall the food was only okay. A little dry, tasty but not anything to write home about and not quite hot enough for my liking. Which for most people the tempature probably wouldn't have been an issue but I like my "hot food" to be well, hot.

Overall, the service was mediocre, the food was okay and I thought it was a bit pricy for the quality and service we recieved. I would give it a 6 out of 10.

Dear Baby Reeves,

This is your mom and me.

 
back when we were just babies too.

We met back in college through mutual friends and she soon became one of my favorite people. She is kind and sweet and I love watching her follow Jesus!

 

I miss her a lot.

 

See your mother and Tim moved to Indiana two years ago to help start a church plant. I miss her friendship and awkwardness at times ;) but am so happy for them and their new adventure.

The other day I was talking to her over google chat, see she had called me the night before and being the good friend I am, I hadn’t called her back yet. Here is how the conversation probably went,

 

Lindsay: Esther, I am going to call you tonight and I am just saying, you really should answer this time.

Me: Okay! Okay! I promise I will answer this time!! I am sorry!!! See, unknown to your mom,  I already had a feeling that YOU would be the topic of our conversation!

 

This is how I imagine she looked like when she & Tim found out about you

 

Now, while I may live thousands of miles away right now, I really can’t wait until your parent's let me baby-sit you and I can tell you all about your mom. Perhaps I will start with the Feicho Annual Women’s Retreat and how we tried to show Lindsay how to shimmy. Or maybe the time when we went to Sun River for spring break and played chubby bunnies! Or  "group burritto" anyone?

 

Oh, I have so much to tell you. But see, now I am getting ahead of myself, first I must let you grow up and enjoy your childhood before I shower you with so much information. I will try my best.

 

Also, your parents are very special people

 

so try not to give them too hard of a time.

 

I seriously can not wait to meet you baby reeves.

 

 

Sincerely,

 

Esther (the one in Seattle)

Nothing out of the oridnary

The weather has been crazy lately even for Seattle. Rain, wind, rain, wind, rain, a tease of sunshine and then….more rain. Last week we even had a thunder & lightening storm! It was crazy, I literally thought the windows at the new apartment were going to break open and it was going to come tumbling down. Flyn assured me it would not. So, here’s to sunny afternoons in July, oh how I miss you right now.  

 

I am really looking forward to this weekend! Friday we leave for a short trip to Chicago for the weekend. This will be my second trip out to chi-town in less than six months! We are hoping to be able to get away a bit to enjoy ourselves in the city but we’ll probably take it a day at a time, seeing as we have a lot planned out already. I can’t wait to see my good friend Lindsay in Chicago! Not only because it has it been four months sense I saw her last, but I have an even better reason, which I will leave the details for my next blog. Stay tuned...

  

I am also looking forward to next Friday, the dreaded day by any person who works in retail, Black Friday! I am hoping to snag some good deals for Christmas presents and last minute wedding decorations. I have friends that get queasy just thinking about Black Friday and I agree, if I have to be out in it all day long I will start to feel a bit queasy myself. But I really  do enjoy the excitement of waking up early and going to a few already selected stores to get some fantastic deals. Growing up we would always get up super early at like 5:30 and head down to Fred Meyers for the door buster deals. I don’t think I ever bought many Christmas presents at that age, but it was worth getting up early for the free apple cider and donut holes welcoming me into the busy store. Not to mention this year, I get the day off. Paid. What better to do than get paid to go shopping? And who says it has to be all about buying christmas presents for others....last year I got an awesome deal on a pair of brown boots I had really wanted. Regular price $75.00. Black Friday price, 40% discount AND a 20% discount from my mom's work!

 

I will try and remember to take some pictures of the trip this weekend and share with you next week…..

 

Hope you make it through the rest of week dry!

Is it Dec 12 yet?

Who ever said it takes four months to plan a wedding...

was sorely mistaken.

It's less than a month away

and yet it seems more out of reach than three months ago.

I hate this waiting time.

Waiting, waiting, waiting...

Still waiting.

  
  

 

Brauts & Spiced Wine

Earlier this year Flyn and I took a trip to Leavenworth to check out what all the hoopla was about. (Well, I should clarify, I have been there many times but he had not). After calling in "sick" to work for the day we headed on our way. As always it was a beautiful drive over the pass on a clear crisp day, after which seeing the quaint little Bavarian town between the mountains is a welcome surprise. I was used to going in the summer during our family camping trips to Lake Wenatchee, so I was a bit surprised to see how empty it was. The summer months attract plenty of tourists walking around with ice cream and cramming into the small Bavarian shops. However, this time of year it felt more like a ghost town. I didn't stop to think either that it was a week day at ten in the morning when we arrived. We drove around a little and then decided on a local wine tasting at one of the many wine shops on the main strip. We tasted a few wines and then came upon a red spiced wine (which I will discuss in more detail later so please read on..)MMmm was it good. So much so that Flyn even bought a bottle to take back with us. Back to the story, after the wine tasting we walked around a bit checking out the various shops. Candy shop, hat shop, one of the hundreds of trinket shops....I think my many trips as a child to the hat shop may have scarred me from enjoying it as much this time. It was getting close to lunch time. We surveyed our options and unless you are big on brauts and sauerkraut or fancy-schmancy McDonalds, there are not a lot of options. We ended up choosing a Chinese restaurant. Mind you any Chinese restaurant in a Bavarian town screams not good. Apparently we didn't care at the time. It proved right however, it was absolutely horrible. Duly noted. We finished the day with a bit more site seeing and headed on home. All in all it was a fun trip and we were glad we called in sick that day. I hope I haven't discouraged you from visiting this cute little town! It is a fun place to see if you have never been. A few suggestions, stear clear of the chinese food and go during the summer or winter, as I have heard it can be quite fun surveying the town in a horse drawn sleigh.

 

 

 

My main reason for this post was that our Leavenworth trip reminded me of the spiced wine we had as we head into the holiday season. While it is out of my way to go to Leavenworth to pick up a bottle, I remembered that World Market carries spiced wine around Christmas time! And rest assured I will be stopping by the store every day on my way home from work until I find it! I couldn't find it online yet but once I do I will post a picture of it for you. Even if you don't usually like wine I would highly suggest this yummy mixture!

 

Do you have a special drink you enjoy around the holidays? Eggnog? Hot Buttered Rum?